Hints and Tips
This hints and tips section contains spoilers. Please do not read any further if you do not want to potentially ruin the story plot or your game experience. Dealing with hostile reputation As you follow the storyline doing missions primarily for the Terran faction, you eventually gain "hostile" status with the Vossk, which causes all Vossk to attack you when you enter their systems. The same can occur if you perform too many side missions for either the or Midorian and Nivelian faction. If you want to restore a "neutral" status for any faction, fly as fast as possible (boosters are recommended) and dock at the hostile faction's station (your ship must be protected enough to survive incoming damage on the way to the station). Most hostile stations will offer you a chance to dock if you pay a bribe, but some might refuse to offer any chance to dock. Once successfully docked at the hostile station, visit the Space Lounge to take on and perform some side missions for that faction. Perform such faction side missions until your status returns to neutral. You can view your status with each faction at any time by touching the Status button when docked at any station. Also, you might find a diplomat at any Space Lounge. He will take 16 000 credits and manipulate your data, so you will not be recognized as an enemy to that faction any more. Another tip is that you may go to a friendly station,and shoot down friendly ships until they become neutrual states. (Although this is not always a good idea, especially when attacking a Terran ship in a heavily traveled Terran area. All nearby ships will instantly turn from yellow to red status and shoot you down.) Then the hostile station will turn to neutrual too. "This station is currently unmanned" If you attempt to dock at a space station and receive a message saying that the station is currently unmanned due to too many pirates being in the surrounding area, you are unable to dock because there is a "hidden" pirate base not too far away. To find the pirate base, look for a reddish area of space dust and head towards it. As you near the red space dust, you will begin to see the pirate base; a few pirates may be launched which you'll need to kill but ultimately you need to destroy the base. Tip: Turn off automatic turrets and avoid attacking any pirates near the faction's station, because if you accidentally kill any faction ships, they'll all turn hostile to you until you leave the system for a while and don't come back for some period of time. Instead, boost towards the pirate base and take it out first. Once destroyed, you can return back to the space station that you were trying to dock at, upon which you should be allowed to dock and receive a welcome message: How To Return To Void Space After The Storyline Is Complete While the storyline is still running, you can visit Void Space by entering wormholes that appear on the Map. However, once you have completed the storyline, wormholes like that no longer exist. When you are undocked from a spacestation, hit the button for Secondary Weapons/Wingmen/Khador Drive. Select "Khador Drive" where you will be asked whether you want to jump into Void Space (Yes/No). If you say "Yes", the Khador Drive will charge (this requires 1 energy cell) and you will then jump into Void Space. To return from Void Space, simply reactivate the Khador Drive and you will be sent back to the station from which you came. Note: A later update added the possibility that energy cells appear in Mido so you don't get stuck there. Note: If you sold your Khador drive you can get 50 void crystals at a time from Thynome. Making money The quickest and easiest way to make money (with the Khador Drive) is to get a ship with a massive cargo area, (like a Cormorant), and stock up on big ticket items - Organs, Rare Plants and Rare Animals. (To further extend your cargo hold space, purchase the blueprint and produce a Rhoda Blackhole.) If you can find a place with, for example, 150t of organs at $4000 a ton and then take them to a place where you get $6000 a ton, that 150 x $2000 profit = $300,000. To find out where to sell your goods, touch the "i" symbol next to the commodity to see the known price range and buy from the system at the low end, and sell at the system at the high end. NOTE: Some good systems found to trade between are Pan (which is hidden) and Wolf-Reiser. Search to find high quantities of Implants or Rare Animals to sell in Pan, and then search for Organs and Luxury to bring back to Wolf Reiser. (you could also check Aquila for Implants or Rare Animals). Post-Valkyrie Changes: *If you buy the Valkyrie expansion, the speed with which you can make money increases significantly. The main reason is that the new Valkyrie-only pirate system Loma has the highest 'buy" prices of any system, which means that selling goods at Loma will always yield the greatest possible profit even after paying the "bribe" fee to travel safely within the system. *In general, the best places to buy key trade goods at the lowest prices possible are Pan (Organs and Luxury Goods), Sueto (Turrets), and Aquila/Wolf-Reiser (Implants and Rare Plants). *Early in the game story line, the best balance among profit per credit invested, required cargo space, and number of system jumps is buying Implants in Wolf-Reiser (cheapest) and Aquila (nearly as cheap), then selling them in Loma. You can hop back and forth between Aquila and Wolf-Reiser until you acquire a full cargo bay of implants. (Leaving a system and then coming back resets the hanger inventory in that system.) Each implant found/sold this way will yield roughly 80% profit. If you don't want to spend the time jumping back and forth to buy only implants, you can also make a roughly 80% profit on Rare Plants from Aquila and Wolf-Reiser. Using this Wolf-Reiser > Aquila > Loma trade route for Implants and Rare Plants will enable you to by the most advanced gear and ships possible very quickly, especially if you invest in a Cormorant and cargo compressors as early as possible. Adding a good automatic turret, good speed booster, and a stealth device to the Cormorant will make it possible to safely get to any station without the need to actively fight maurading pirates near the stations and jump gates. *Buying cheap items in the Suteo system then selling them at any station in Loma nets approximately a 20-40% profit as long as you evade the pirates instead of paying the bribe. For example, very expensive turrets are very cheap but in plentiful supply in Suteo and a profit of 70-80,000 credits is made on each Skuld AT XR purchase. It only takes a few hours of trading to get the 30m credits needed for Kaamo with this technique. (Note: Skuld AT XR turrets are not purchasable in Sueto at lower player levels early in the game story line.) Effective and Accurate Attacks Post-Valkyrie analysis: With the advent in the Valkyrie expansion of automatic turrets (especially the long-range, craftable HH-AT "Archimedes", the longer range SunFire o50 thermo weapon, and the very long range, craftable Icarus Heavy AS scatter gun, it is possible to fight very effectively with only 3 primary weapon slots and a turret slot, making a wider variety of "ultimate class" ships strong competitive choices with the "best" pre-Valkyrie ship choices. The Veteran, for example, becomes an extremely formidable ship when equipped with a good automatic turret, a long range thermo weapon, the Icarus Heavy AS (which fires AOE rounds), and a long-range laser such as the standard Berger Converge IV or the Valkyrie-only, craftable Disruptor Laser. Lasers: With lasers, you are advised to close the distance, and attack up close, using missiles when you can. With the Beam lasers, you are advised to keep the target within medium range, using boost to accelerate to an adequate range, as in close quarters, targets will often mow you down, your Beam lasers not firing fast enough to hit accurately at close range. Automatic Turrets (Valkyrie only): If you have purchased the Valkyrie expansion, it introduces new automatic turrets that are extremely powerful and make it more difficult to choose from among the various "ultimate class" ships. For example, the Veteran and the new Valkyrie-only S'Kanarr both become very strong ship choices compared to the Mantis and other "ultimate" ships, by virtue of those two being the only "ultimate" ships that have a turret slot. Automated turrets are automatically toggled on every time you exit a station or warp into a new planetary system, and they automatically fire at all enemy targets that are within the weapon's range. You can manually toggle OFF the turret with a button that appears above your right-hand control pad; doing so is advisable when entering the pirate system Loma, for example, to avoid aggroing the pirates before they can offer you a chance pay the bribe for safe passage. The craftable HH-AT "Archimedes" turret has an exceptionally long 6600m range and moderately high DPS, so it alone can often score multiple kills while you are mining or traveling from point A to point B. In battle, automatic turrets can account for nearly 50% or more of your total kills in a big swarm while you are chasing down specific targets with your primary weapons. Finally, automatic turrets are very useful for dealing with nearby enemies that have engaged you in dog fights and are too close to chase effectively, particulary if you have a ship with low Handling stats. You can focus on the more distant enemies in front of you and let the automatic turret deal with the enemies that keep staying close and getting behind you. Scatter Guns (Valkyrie only): If you have purchased the Valkyrie expansion, it introduces new scatter guns, which fire AOE rounds that explode wheIn any object comes close to the proximity of each round. This means you don't need to score an exact hit but merely to come close to your target. Each round explodes with an AOE blast of a certain Magnitude that will affect all other nearby targets within the Magnitude radius. The craftable Icarus Heavy AS has an especially long range of 5000m. A downside to this weapon type is that its proximity effect and AOE damage does not discriminate between friend and foe (or asteroids, etc.), so you must exercise restraint in firing your primary weapon battery if this weapon is equipped, making sure you don't fire at enemies who have friendlies nearby. Thermos: Thermos are very effective if used correctly because they are the only primary weapon type that will actively track the target for guaranteed hits if the target is in range of the weapon and you have a target lock. To make an effective attack, one must be quick with boosts, and have a scanner with a very short Time to Lock (such as the Hiroto Ultrascan), otherwise the weapon will be rendered effectively useless. Similar to how you must hold your reticle over an asteroid/planet/station/jumpgate and wait for a scanner lock, you must hold your reticle over an enemy ship long enough to acquire a target lock, at which point a red crosshair will appear over that ship as long as they stay near the center of your forward view. While this crosshair is visible AND if you are within the weapon's listed range, all thermo bolts will track and hit the target. At initial attack, keep the opponent at a distance, to enable the scanner to make a more accurate scan. Then, the player must use boost to close the distance. The drawing rate of the Abyss engine will not allow for more than a certain amount of bolts to fill the screen, so it is advised to get up close as the bolts will connect faster, will allow for a maximization of the thermo weapon's firerate. Auto-cannons: There actually is no better tactic than to go up close. Easiest to use of all weapons. Blasters: Blasters are the children of mass drivers and lasers, preserving the damage of lasers, with the increased fire rate of a mass driver. To make effective use of this type of weapon, one must equip dumb-fire rockets such as the Jet Rocket, or the G'Illisk. Use boosters to close the distance and fire missiles liberally, and fire your blasters without stopping. Your blaster will paint a line of bolts across space, most, or even some hitting the target. The rockets will make up for the lost hits, leading to a quick takedown. Quicker Missiles: When you boost, missiles get a brief jolt of speed, allowing for them to hit your targets sooner. This can be invaluable to use in one on one jousts, as you can get 4 out of 5 missiles to hit, instead of the nominal 3 out of 5. This also seems to make unguided rockets and bombs far faster than their normal speed, allowing for an unprecedented amount of rockets flying about onscreen. Combine this with the Blaster or Laser tactics to create an even more accurate attack. Visiting the stations and systems When you're playing, the stations you visit are marked with a checkmark, and when every station in a system has been visited it will also be marked with a checkmark. If you remember to always check the space lounge's of the stations you visit, this will save you much time when hunting for blueprints and system coordinates. Finding weapons and equipment All the weapons and equipment in game (excluding Blueprints' ones) can be found on the hidden systems' stations. Below is the list of all their types and where to find them: *Boosters, Thrusters - Ni'mrrod, Ekkr Urra *Rockets, Missiles - Ni'mrrod, Narsaxa *Cabins, Cloaks - Ni'mrrod, K'ane *Scanners, EMP Bombs and AMR bombs - Ni'mrrod, S'porrk *Shields - Suteo, Anesa *Turrets - Suteo, Nehebru *Armor - Suteo, Poseho *Tractor Beams, Drills - Pan, Taygete *Compressor - Pan, Emisto *Blasters, EMP blasters - Y'mirr, B'arrtu *Auto-cannons, Thermos - Y'mirr, K'mirrk *Lasers - Y'mirr, G'ukkion *Ore (except Void Crystals) - Y'mirr, Rr'ostam *Ore cores (except Void Essence)- Y'mirr, P'arrenk *Commodities - Wolf-Reiser, Thynome *Void Crystals - Wolf-Reiser (Only when the player does not have a Khador Drive onboard. They will appear if the player leaves their Khador Drive at Kaamo) Explosives- gesehn (produced here) Nirai impulse, Nirai charged pulse- dima,fetus (was produced here) Massive Storage Compression devices stack their effects. This means you can use multiple items to increase your storage, most importantly more than one Rhoda Blackhole. This can turn a freighter into a mega money maker, or a fighter ship into a quick fix trade vessel when needed. With the right ship you can easily have over 1500 tons of cargo space using this method. Category:Miscellaneous